Anna Foglová

„Jak je Grand a obchodní škola, tak tam bylo. No všude plno lidí. Ale my jsme jeli. S autem zastavil u Spořitelny. A teďka děcka, ty si tam udělaly od té obchodní školy ke Grandu takový špalír. Stáli. No a jely tanky, no. Tak jely tanky. Nahoře voják se samopalem. No tak on by najel do těch děcek. Se samozřejmě rozutekli. A my jsme seděli v tom autě. A teďka ten tank přijížděl už k nám. A tak já jsem otevřela dveře, že vylezu, vemu Milánka. Jenomže tank narazil do auta, začal kufr rolovat pod sebe. Milánek, ten chudák vypad na chodník, tak jsem ho chytla, no to víte, řvala jsem a, a utíkali jsme domů. Takže to je můj zážitek ze srpna šedesát osm."

„Taky ale zase jiný přišly. A: ,Davaju vodku!´ Babička, prostě: ,Vodka niet.´ Tak vytáhl granát a: ,Davaju vodku!´ Tak vím, maminka tenkrát mě vzala do náručí a šla se mnou do zahrady. Ta starší sestra, ta byla ve škole u babičky v Novinách, takže doma nebyla. A Lidunka, ta ještě nebyla teda, ta mladší sestra. A babička, to byl takovej, víte, nebojácnej člověk, a ona se do nich pustila. ,Syny jste nám vzali! Nechali jenom matky s malýma dětma! Starý lidi!´ A ten voják: ,Tiše, mamaša, tiše!´ A odešli. I bez vodky."

“The father of the family came to my parents to ask if they could hide somewhere. Dad told them to come in a week, and he discussed the matter with Granddad and prepared a stack of straw. They made a hole there, which they covered up. The stack was right behind the barn, where we used to go for straw, so there wasn’t any danger of betraying their whereabouts with a trodden path. They had a pail for faeces, and Grandma would always empty it in the evening. They brought them food every evening as well. Once a week they prepared things to let them have a bath inside the house. They didn’t tell [us] about it until now, and their youngest son also recalled how things were. How they’d been in the ghetto and had managed to escape. One of their sons was shot there. Nine-year-old Josef got lost somewhere and wandered around the forest alone. It must have been terrible. I get goose bumps just thinking about it. But then he met up with his parents. Winter was coming, they didn’t what to do, so they set off to our place in Frankov. They agreed with my parents that we’d hide in the stack, and that was from autumn till spring, eight months.”

“The Jews were from Mlýnov, and my parents had been in touch with them before the war broke out. My father had sold them farm goods, so they were in contact. From what I remember, I visited them one time with my grandma, and the lady gave us tea. But I don’t remember how things were during the war. My parents didn’t speak about it at all. We didn’t found out about it until after we had moved here.”

“I remember attending elementary school in Komenský Street. There was a dairy opposite the theatre, and the sign outside said: ‘NO BUTTER, NO MILK BECAUSE HOLÁTKO FAILED HIS QUOTA.’ It was tough. He resisted for long, but the earnings were terrible, and so he had to join in the end. I don’t know how many years it was, but he quit again afterwards. Even though he suffered from epilepsy, he didn’t mind hard work, but he couldn’t stand mental strain. And when he saw the way people worked in the co-op, the stealing that went on there, he kept getting into fits and was taken to hospital. So he quit the co-op. Of course, they gave him the worst field, he had no feed, so he had to go into debt to buy some for the livestock. I was in my third year at the school in Přerov. They took my scholarship, of course. They only gave eighty crowns, but then just before graduation they discovered that Dad had a house, so I wasn’t eligible for even those eighty crowns. So I had to sign that I’d give back seven-hundred-and-twenty crowns by the end of the year, otherwise they wouldn’t give me my graduation certificate.”